The Truth of Winter
by rachel2205
Summary: For a Stark, there's only one vital truth: winter is coming.


This is responding to the prompt _Pre-GoT Jon/Robb (UST/firsts/smut)_ though in fact it moves back and forth between pre-GOT and the first episode of the show. This is mostly based on show canon, and so the boys are a few years older than in book canon. I've fiddled with continuity slightly for my own ends!

Apologies to those waiting for a Song of Snow and Blood update. I've been very busy with work but I will be coming back to it!

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><p>The direwolf pups whimpered in Bran's arms as he asked Jon:<p>

'What about you?'

'I'm not a Stark,' said Jon shortly. Robb's breath caught in his throat. He knew Jon had only spun that story about the direwolves being meant for the Starks because he'd seen Bran's face fall at the thought of them being killed, but if it were true – if the gods really didn't think of Jon as one of them –

But then Jon was looking away, listening for some soft noise, and in a moment he had pulled out a wriggling pup out from under the spreading roots of a tree.

'The runt of the litter – that one's yours, Snow,' said Theon, laughing at the strange white pup, eyes like bloodstains in the snow. Jon's jaw tightened, but he looked at Robb, not Theon. Robb, stomach churning with a strange mixture of disappointment and relief, looked back at him before turning away. Once again Robb was his brother but not, of Stark blood but not of Stark name, almost but not quite family. The time was drawing near, so near, for when Jon would be leaving to go to the Wall, and the gods still hadn't given Robb the sign he'd been asking for.

Direwolf pups secured in his saddlebags, tiny heads poking out over the top, Robb mounted his horse, and as soon as they were clear of the trees he broke into a canter.

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><p>They were fourteen the first time they gave each other a hand. That's what they called it; it wasn't fucking, it wasn't anything <em>wrong<em>. It was what you did when you wanted to get off, but you were tired of your own hand. It was the sort of thing you did before you'd bedded a girl. It didn't mean anything.

That's what Robb told himself after he wiped Jon's come off his hand and pulled up his breeches.

'That's better,' he said briskly, like Jon had helped him get a knot out of his muscles. That's all it was, after all. Just a relief. He clapped Jon on the shoulder and headed to his own room.

He managed to get almost all the way there before he started shaking.

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><p>'Go on Tommy, shear him good; he's never met a girl he likes better than his own hair.'<p>

Robb laughed, and so did Theon. Jon said nothing, just tipped his head back for the barber. It was a joke, nothing more than a stupid joke, but it stung. Robb knew better than anyone that Jon had never met a girl he liked at all, not the way Theon and Robb liked them. And Robb's joke started Theon in on one of his favourite topics – namely when Jon was going to finally lose his precious virginity.

'I'd've thought, since you're going to vow your cock to the Wall for the rest of your life, you'd be out getting as much cunt as you can,' said Theon. Jon didn't tell him about the time he and Robb had gone to the brothel in a fit of boyish bravado, and then when a girl – well, more of a woman, really, at least five years older than him and possibly more – had taken him into her room and taken off her dress, Jon hadn't been aroused at all, just sick to his stomach thinking of what Robb was doing in the room down the hall.

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><p>Robb couldn't have taken more than fifteen minutes, but to Jon it felt like years standing in the dimly lit hallway of the brothel, listening to soft sounds coming from the nearby rooms. At one point he heard a low male groan and thought that it sounded like Robb did when he –<p>

Jon's nails bit into his hand. It was stupid thinking of that now. It wasn't like it would ever happen again, not now they'd been here. Why would Robb make do with him when he'd had a woman?

A door opened and Robb came out, flushed and dishevelled, expression half-smug and half-dazed.

'And I thought I didn't last long,' he teased, seeing Jon standing there.

'Changed my mind,' Jon said, scuffing his foot against the wall, and for whatever reason Robb had chosen not to tease him, even though Jon knew he deserved it. And though later he boasted about his adventure to Theon, he didn't mention Jon at all.

That night Jon lay in bed thinking about Robb. Robb with the whore. The thought made his stomach tighten with a sickly combination of jealousy and desire. Robb's strong young hands, callused from riding and swordplay, against a pale breast or a soft thigh. Had Robb kissed her, Jon wondered, the way he'd never kissed him? He thought of Robb's mouth open under the girl's, hand running through the soft length of her hair, and Jon bit down furiously on his lip even as he pushed his hand underneath his nightshirt.

When the door opened Jon almost had a heart attack. The room was too dark for him to be able to make out more than a shadow in the doorway.

'Snow,' said a soft voice.

'Robb,' he replied, relieved and guilty all at once, and he pulled the bedclothes higher. 'What –'

'Shh,' said Robb, bed creaking as he climbed in. Jon could smell beer on his breath; he and Theon had been drinking, of course. No doubt toasting his prowess with women.

'What d'you want?' he said grumpily, trying not to let his leg brush Robb's.

'Was just thinking,' said Robb, tone all slurred sincerity, 'that y'didn't get off tonight, and tha' didn't seem fair, so –' He reached out clumsily and grabbed at Jon's cock. Jon yelped in surprise, though the heat of Robb's fingers made his already-stiff prick painfully hard.

'Shh,' said Robb again, putting his other hand over Jon's mouth, and started working his cock. His hand was almost too rough, oh gods like that just right, and Jon bit down on Robb's fingers as he came, whimpering sound in the back of his throat. Robb made a soft low noise in sympathy, and Jon's head fell back on the pillow, Robb's fingers slipping from his mouth.

'Robb – ' said Jon after a minute, once he'd got his breath back, but Robb was already sliding out of the bed. He paused in the doorway, and Jon wished he could see his face. There was a long pause, and Jon felt his heart hammering in his chest.

'Sleep well, Snow,' Robb said at last, and the door creaked shut.

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><p>The day before Jon was due to leave for the Wall, Robb went back to the godswood. The leaves were red as blood now, and the air tasted of ice. Winter is coming, thought Robb, pulling his cloak tighter round his throat. When he was a child those words had a grave kind of comfort to them. The Starks didn't need fancy words, his father told him once, words that offered promises that men could break. A Stark spoke the bald truth, come what may, and in Winterfell <em>Winter is Coming<em> was the purest truth they had.

Maybe, Robb thought after a long while on his knees in the fallen leaves, that was the point. If he didn't know how to be right, he could at least be _true_.

'We should get proper drunk tonight,' he said to Jon that evening. 'You and me, eh? Old times and that. Before you go.'

'And Theon?' said Jon guardedly. Robb shook his head, and Jon looked relieved. Robb felt his pulse fluttering nervously in his throat, and so he got round the feeling by clapping Jon heartily on the shoulder and promising him a sore head for the road.

After dinner that night Robb took a jug of strong twice-brewed ale from the kitchens.

'Come on,' he said to Jon. It was cold enough now that their breath misted in the night air, but that didn't stop him leading Jon to the broken tower. Seeing it gave him a pang now, because of how Bran had fallen, but he knew that inside they'd be left to themselves.

'You carry this,' he said, shoving the jug at Jon, and went ahead up the narrow stairs, lantern swinging from one hand, other hand giving him balance on the uneven steps.

The chamber at the top of what was left of the tower was very cold, the crumbling walls twisted with vines. Robb sat on the dusty stone floor and pulled his furs round him, setting the lantern in front of him, and then held his hand out for the jug. Jon passed it to him, and they settled in to get iproper drunk/i.

Robb had no idea what they talked about for most of the evening. He knew he'd laughed often and so had Jon, strange hectic laughter over nothing and everything. Robb felt like he could feel the hours counting down, but he couldn't bring himself to talk about the morning, what it meant.

'Said goodbye to Bran?' he'd managed, and Jon said:

'Tomorrow,' which would have been the perfect opportunity to say something about Jon leaving, but instead he'd just nodded vigorously and said:

'Good. He'll know you were there, I'm sure of it,' that horrible forced cheerfulness in his voice he'd taken to using whenever he talked to anyone about Bran's prospects. Jon had nodded, and the conversation had moved on.

The jug was nearly empty when the lantern's candle had guttered out.

'Shit,' said Jon, in so surprised a tone that Robb started laughing. 'How're we supposed to see the way down now?'

'Have to stay up here all night,' joked Robb, and there was a strange breathless moment between them. It was a moonless night, but there was enough starlight that Robb could make out Jon's face, the way his lips parted. This is it, Robb thought feverishly, I need to say something, to do something, I need –

'Robb,' said Jon, face pale, voice hoarse, and Robb dug his fingers into the fur collar of Jon's cloak and kissed him. Jon made a shocked choking sound, and Robb pulled back.

'I'm sorry – '

_Don't_ say that,' said Jon fiercely, 'not when I've always – ' He shook his head and put his hand on the back of Robb's neck, pulled him forward, and when they kissed their mouths were hard enough to bruise. Robb's head swam from the beer, and then more when his head cracked against the stone floor as he pulled Jon on top of him.

'You alright?' said Jon breathlessly.

'Don't _talk_,' said Robb furiously, tugging him back down, scratch of stubble against his mouth and chin, and when he kissed Jon's throat Jon's hips jerked hard. And there wasn't any talking after that, just a feverish tangle of hands tugging open breeches and pulling up tunics, the press of Jon's bare thigh between his legs, the feel of Jon's cock pressing against Robb's stomach, and then the hot pulse of Jon spunking over him. Robb rolled Jon onto his back, pushing his prick between Jon's thighs. He held Jon down by the shoulders, and it only took a couple of thrusts of his hips before he was coming between Jon's thighs, teeth bruising his own lip to stop himself shouting.

Afterward he rolled onto his back, and they lay side by side panting.

'What did you mean,' Robb said at last, 'by _I've always_? You've always what?'

Jon was quiet for a long time, long enough for Robb to wonder if he'd gone to sleep, when he finally replied:

'Wanted you to do that.'

Robb's breath caught in his throat, but he remembered what he'd told himself in the godswood.

'Me too,' he admitted.

It was stupid, but the sound of Jon breathing in when he said that made tears spring to his eyes.

'I wanted to tell you for so long,' he said after a while. 'It doesn't change anything, you know,' he said. 'For the future. If I weren't – if I weren't the eldest…' He shook his head in frustration. He was to be Lord of Winterfell one day, and he had to be good, he had to be iright/i. His father had taught him that duty meant more than personal happiness when Ned had agreed to become the King's Hand. 'Winter's coming. But. I wanted you to know.'

'I know,' said Jon quietly. 'Both parts, I mean.'

He reached out his hand, and Robb took it.

Outside, the sky began to pale into grey.

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><p>Seeing Bran was as hard as he'd expected, and Lady Stark as cruel. Jon wondered if Robb was going to let him go without saying goodbye, or if last night was meant to be their farewell. Well, he wasn't going to seek him out, he thought determinedly, crossing the yard – and then Robb was there, as if his thoughts had summoned him.<p>

'Said goodbye to Bran? He's not going to die, I know it.'

Robb's words were in the confident Lord-of-Winterfell tone that had been creeping into his voice more and more these days, the tone that was taking Robb further and further away from him.

'You Starks are hard to kill,' joked Jon easily, because that was how he and Robb had always talked, any time that wasn't last night. They joked their way through the rest of their farewells, Robb brisk and friendly, Jon wry and resigned, until Robb said:

'Farewell, Snow.'

'And you, Stark,' said Jon, and he felt the corner of his mouth twitch down hard. He didn't think he was mistaking the way Robb's nostrils flared, and then Robb was pulling him against him into an embrace that was crushingly tight.

Robb was the first to pull away, the first to turn and leave. Jon watched him stride confidently across the yard and thought: look back at me. Just once.

But he didn't, because Robb understood that winter was coming. Jon thought he was beginning to understand what that meant, too. And so Jon finished saddling his horse, and fastened to his tunic under his cloak the pin that Robb had pressed into his hand before he turned away.

Jon might never be a Stark, might never be allowed to love a Stark the way he wanted, but as he rode out of Winterfell he went with their sigil over his heart.


End file.
